


Everyone knows you're going to live, So You Might as well start trying

by orphan_account



Series: My Teen Wolf One Shots [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Family Bond, Family Dynamics, Gen, Magic Illness, Mares, Near Death Experience, Nightmares, What family means, magic sickness, pack bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 08:15:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Its not that no one saw the signs, the little ticks and changes, its that they didn't have time to put it all together. They saw how he raised his voice more and more, but not how his hands shook. </p><p>They could see that his eyes constantly looked like they were burning with fever, but not the full pill bottles under his bed. They saw him distancing himself from them all, but not the blankets in the back seat of his Jeep. </p><p>They heard him cracking softly, like they all were, but no one heard him break … until it was too late to catch the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone knows you're going to live, So You Might as well start trying

“Or maybe it's just that beautiful things are so easily broken by the world.”  
― Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels 

xxx

Its not that no one saw the signs, the little ticks and changes, its that they didn't have time to put it all together. They saw how he raised his voice more and more, but not how his hands shook. They could see that his eyes constantly looked like they were burning with fever, but not the full pill bottles under his bed. They saw him distancing himself from them all, but not the blankets in the back seat of his Jeep. They heard him cracking softly, like they all were, but no one heard him break … until it was too late to catch the pieces. 

…

The pack of Beacon Hills came together, human and wolf alike, under the pressure of the last assault of the Alpha pack. They had tried to finally rid the world of them two weeks before, but the battle had been so bloody and violent they had almost lost one of their own. Now Danny was a wolf and Ethan had deserted his pack to be with him. 

They had become unified, all of them putting aside or throwing away their quarrels that all seemed so meaningless now. Coming together under Derek's roof to plan, properly plan for the first time since the metaphorical shit hit the proverbial fan. And it was good.

But not really.

Stiles, always there and always talking Stiles, had become quiet. Quite and subdued and so unlike himself it was putting them all on edge. Constantly exhausted and looking like he hadn't slept in weeks, leaving meetings half way through to either go home or run down the street to throw up in the public bathroom where the wolves wouldn't here.

They all saw. They all worried. They all were too busy.

And then the final confrontation came about, the remaining three of the Alpha pack had taken the forest hostage, declaring all who stepped inside it boarders … meat. 

A plan was formulated, devised by Lydia and Peter (who had become uncertain allies) specifically to take the Alphas down in the forest. Naturally the fight took place in the School. Long and bloody and way to reminiscent of everything they had had nightmares of. A truce, a ceasefire had been offered to them. It had been denied and it had looked like the Beacon Hills pack was finally catching and break.

Until the alphas showed the rest of their hand. Ms Morell.

The ground had shook under their feet, and the windows of the school were suddenly blackened by swirling smoke...or at least it looked like smoke. And sounded like it was whispering. 

The wolves were bought to their knees, screaming and clutching their ears in agony from a sound that the humans couldn't hear. In split seconds the tables had been turned back and forth, and it was all spelling defeat and death.

Until Stiles stepped forwards. Too bright eyes and baseball bat hanging from his hand, he looked deranged. He looked wild.

Speaking, in a voice to low and morbid for the goofy kid, Stiles raised the bat level with the chanting woman’s head. He sneered and she stopped.

He gave no monologue, no warning or offer of peace. Stiles didn't remember what peace ever was any more. He gripped the bat tighter … and spoke.

His words were twisting, winding and old. So old. The pack could feel them, trailing across their skin, echoing deeper and wiser back in their minds. He stepped forwards and the smoke was blasted from the windows, shrieking as it was propelled. Another step, and the debilitating noise was stopped as Ms Morell fell to her knees wit a groan. A third step and the ground became still once more. 

And one final step forwards bought the light. Thick and yellow as day break bursting in through the windows, violently. Stiles raised his voice. The light twisted and moved, swirling almost as if it was a solid entity. It pushed the Alphas back, creating a barrier between the two forces.

Stiles broke his chanting them, arms shaking under an invisible pressure as the light's faded but the Alphas were still unable to move. The lights turned off, one by one, until nothing was left but slowly floating away miniature bodies. Fireflies. Thousands upon thousands of Fireflies.

“For the sake of my friends values I am going to show a bit of Mercy,” Stiles spoke, voice foreign and crackling, “I am going to give you one last chance to leave with your lives...” he looked back to Ms Morell, “...All of you. Leave and never come back, and you get to live.”

It was pretty much text book after that. The Alphas refused to leave, but what ever Stiles had done had disoriented them enough for the others to gain the upper hand …mostly. Kali and Aiden were taken down easily, but Deucalion had managed to slip away at the last moment. Morell had been left for Deaton. 

They had won … Kinda. In the hours that followed, after they were patched up at the McCall's by a seemingly more at ease Melissa, the pack found out about some of the secrets Stiles had been carrying on his own. Found out that the Sheriff had found a book of 'prayers' written in the Elder Futhark at one of the newest crime scenes. They found that Stiles had managed to get his hands on it and had been studying. Learning how to do more than make mountain ash barriers with his 'spark'. 

Anything more had to wait, because despite all his valiant effort, Stiles passed out promptly in the middle of explaining about how he had taken an online coarse on how to accurately pronounce and string together the words. His head pillowed on Derek's shoulder, and for the first time in weeks he didn't look feverish.

…

But Stiles hadn't gotten better since then. Not even a little bit.

They had found a strenuous kind of peace yes, they were the basic out line of a pack and communication was one hundred times more open than it had been. But unlike the rest of them Stiles hadn't adapted. And it was terrifying. 

At first they had collectivity thought that Stiles may have gotten in too deep with the spells he had gotten from the Darach, but he had sworn against any such thing, loudly and seething all the way. Plus Scott had searched his room and locker, finding he was in fact telling the truth. Stiles was magic free.

But he was cold, distant and always tired. He turned down almost all congregations of the pack outside the bi-weekly meetings, and when he didn't he made no effort to disguise his disdain and discomfort. He had even stopped playing (everything) online with Scott, which they had been doing since they were ten years old. 

He was a complete opposite of his former self, and no matter what the pack did he wasn't changing. Scott tried subtle and non-subtle approaches to getting something, anything out of Stiles, but he seemed opposed to talking (which was a cry for help in and of its self). The rest of the pack tried as well, but because of the out break of normality that had fallen over the town they had delved back into their normal lives and were not around as much as they had been. 

Even Derek had attempted to get through to the younger man. He had called Stiles to his apartment and their discussion of the Darach had dissolved into an aggressive argument, full of more emotion than Derek had seen from Stiles in a long time. They had yelled and screamed, and before he could stop himself Derek had pulled Stiles into his arms and done what he had been hating himself for thinking of doing for months. His heart had skittered when Stiles kissed back, just as angry and heated, but when Derek pulled back … it was as if Stiles had been shocked, he looked scared and pale. Derek had never thought he would see Stiles run from him like he did after that. He never thought he would feel something in his stomach twist so tight and violent … again.

They were all lost with no idea how to help or what to do. Deaton was caught up, more often than not he was 'away', which they all thought meant interrogating Ms Morell.

They were all trapped in a kind of waiting, knowing that Stiles was teetering around something they couldn't quite see and none of them could see exactly how they could help, all the while trying to repair the normalcy in their lives. Teetering and teetering, a breath away from the fall-

\- then the Omegas came... And everything collapsed with a heaving cough filled with Stiles too young, too sweet blood.

xxx 

Scott was frantic, phone raised to his ear as he paced in circles around the waiting room of the Vet's office, muttering a string of 'please, please, please' under his breath. He was trembling as everything in him wanted to shift and he felt moments away from tearing his hair from his scalp.

Allison, Lydia and a jittering Isaac watched on from their perches on the cheep hard wood waiting chairs. Wide eyes and bitten lips as they saw Scott fall apart in front of them, ragged breath stuttering out as he waited endlessly for a phone call that might never come.

“I can't take this...” Allison said through her bitten off fingernails.

Lydia sniffed, all grace and poise abandoned for the falsities they had become as she sat rigidly in her ugliest pyjamas. She sneered in the sugar sweet way that only she could.

“Sit, Allison. We can't help him right now.”

Allison choked, and took a breath to speak but Lydia was too tired and way too worried to take any subordination at the moment, even from the well meaning and caring Allison.

“You have no idea what he is going through … you would only be harming him right now, honey.”

“And do you? Do you know what he is going through, Lydia?”

Images of twisted metal and warped trees, beeping monitors and weeks of a suspended kind of Bedlam. Lydia pursed her lips, and feeling Isaac shiver without cold next to her she reached over and clasped her hand to his. She didn't have to look to know he was mostly curled in on himself, and she felt everything in her pushing to take the blood filled images of the last few hours from his mind.

“Just sit.”

Scott's pacing was getting steadily more and more erratic along with his breathing.

“Why aren't they here?!” he screamed, eyes bleeding with unnatural colour as he flung himself towards the wall. He dug his claws into the straining wood, determined to keep a sliver of control over himself.

The others did not move. The could barely breath let alone remind Scott that he had too.

Three hours ago a group of rouge wolves had descended in Beacon Hills, Omegas calling themselves a pack and determined to take the land Derek's family had owned for more than a hundred years.

Derek had played down the threat, telling them of how easy it was to defend against Omegas. They had not counted on their being double the number of their own pack. Or finding themselves separated, or in the case of Boyd, Derek and Stiles; trapped.

Isaac had been with everyone else that was now in the vets waiting room when he felt a searing pain through his mind. The pack bond created when he had been bitten all those months ago was suddenly on fire. He had run without thought, face wolfed out and mind screaming as the others followed him, knowing without words that something wasn't right.

They had found Danny and Ethan backed against a wall behind the School, trying desperately to defend each other as they were surrounded by at least ten Omegas. They had looked wild and inhuman, beasts more then men. Scott and Isaac ploughed into the assault while Allison and Lydia used the higher ground to their advantage. 

Danny and Ethan, bloody and healing, had been saved while at least six Omegas lay wounded or dying on the parking lot tarmac. The others had ran, abandoning their pack as they hissed words that no one could quite make out. 

But the bond didn't stop burning.

Isaac was still jittering, tense and gritted together. Until Scott’s phone rang..

Scott shivered at the memory as Lydia talked him down from smashing through the wall of the Vets Office. He blood felt like it was boiling. 

Danny and Ethan were in Deaton's office, curled up and dozing as they waited for progress. For their Alpha to return.

..All of them had been shook violently when Scott answered his phone and Derek's voice crackled through the line.

He spoke as though he could barely breathe, and a steady baritone growl that could only come from Boyd was sounding in the background. Their Alpha was frantic, his words thick and garbled … like he had been crying.

Scott had yelled, attempting to ground the Alpha long enough to get an actual sentence out of him. It had worked to some degree, his voice steadying and taking on a more clinical form.

They had been dawn in to the preserve with a tape of screams that they had taken for a person being attacked. They hadn't seen the ambush coming until it was too late to run. They had been out numbered heavily...

But the Omegas drew back when Stiles had started screaming.

“Oh god, Stiles..” Derek choked over the line

It was hard to remain in control after that, with Derek telling them of how Stiles screams had been terrifying and blood curdling as the echoed around the trees. He had screamed and screamed, clutching at his chest with wild unseeing eyes, before falling too the forest floor, too still and too quiet.

Through screamed orders and hissed words Derek had convinced them to meet him at the Vet's Office, convincing them that it would be quicker for him and Boyd to get around the Omega's than have to wait for reinforcements.

It had been hours. No more calls. No sign of any of the unaccounted for pack members. 

Lydia stood from her seat and padded over to the window, hand on the hilt of the hunting knife hidden just under the waistband of her pyjama shorts. She was never having a movie night with any of the pack again. Especially if she was the one with the stupidest pyjamas … and if Stiles refused to come. She felt her face twist when she thought about the boy that was quickly becoming one of the best friends she had ever had. 

“If they don't arrive soon,” She spoke, clear and concise to the silent room, “We are going out there again. No matter what Derek said. Twenty minutes”

She heard a 'hmm' from Allison and knew that the others agreed as well. She wasn't going to lose anyone else. Not without a fight.

But they didn't need to venture outside. Ten minutes after she made the announcement a very bloody Boyd burst through the doors, with Derek stumbling behind him … a limp and pale Stile's hanging from him arms.

Scott was the first to them, bypassing Boyd who was collapsing into Lydia's arms. Scotts face was blank as he looked down at his unconscious friend, taking in the blackness around his eyes and the yellowing skin of his cheeks.

“We were cornered,” The Alpha whispered, “He was getting worse... he had to kill them … as many as we could or-...”

“Are any of them left?”

Derek bit his lip and looked down.

“..All I could see was red.”

Scott nodded, hand going to the distressed man's shoulder. Though everything in him was yelling that he should take Stiles and hold him crushingly close. But from the way Derek was clutching him close, keeping him heated and shielded, Scott just couldn't.

Deaton appeared in his usual fashion; suddenly and without much sound.

“Bring him through to the back and put him on the table.” Deaton commanded, ignoring the half said questions of the others in the room, “I've put out some blankets for him. If this is what I think it is he needs to be warm … and we need to be quick.”

The others raised their voices, but Deaton wasn't listening as his eyes stayed glued to the now shivering Stiles.

The Door closed with Derek on the outside and they were back to silence, Boyd curled up in Lydia's lap on the floor as Isaac huddled under Allison's protective arm as Scott stood tall over them all. Derek sagged and slid down the Mountain Ash infused desk, feeling the prickle through his shirt and not caring.

Scott sighed and placed himself next to the shrinking Alpha.

“So .. any ideas?”

“None what so ever.”

Scott gripped his hands together so tight they cracked under the strain.

“I looked all through his room a few days ago,” he admitted knowing everyone in the room was listening, probably Danny and Ethan as well, “It was the same as ever. No ancient Druid books, no vials or Wolfsbane or Mountain Ash or any crap like that … it was the same as it has always been.”

Allison squinted at them, “What about his meds?”

“He isn't like this when he is off his Aderrall… I have never seen him like this, not ever.”

They all slumped, defeated and so very tired with being powerless. All they could do was wait. And it was frightening.

…

They were forced to wait for three more hours, sitting huddled and subdued in the waiting room. Boyd, who had suffered the most injuries drifted into the back room with Danny and Ethan, to sleep and hope being in such close proximity to already healed wolves would help. The others stayed vigil. 

Scott and Allison seemed to have a very long conversation with just their eyes, and Lydia had started to play Go-fish with Isaac in hope of stopping his shaking. It was annoying... and confronting. Derek remained slumped and sour against the Mountain Ash barricade. Too lost in his won head to truly speak.

Three hours of a tense purgatory and almost complete silence from where Deaton was shuffling around in the next room. Almost completely silent except for Isaac and Lydia's mumbles and the slip of laminated paper.

Silent, until Mrs McCall cam through the doors like a hurricane, more thunder on her face than Derek had seen in the sky.

They all jumped, and Isaac may have squeaked, not that he would ever admit it. There she suddenly was, wild curled hair and bright scrubs and yet looking more intimidating than could ever be articulated.

“Someone is going to tell me what is going on right now or I swear to god I will put you all in the Hospital!”

“Mom, I-”

“Why did I get a text- a TEXT- telling me that Stiles was ill, potentially dying!”

“Because you needed to know?”

“A TEXT,” She spat, “If you don't mind son I would rather talk to someone else right now.”

Scott shrugged and shrunk back on himself. Melissa glared at the room, her entire form radiating anger and...fear. She was stinking of fear.

“Mrs McCall,” Lydia stared “We honestly are as clueless as you right now.”

Melissa let out a huff of breath and they all watched as her face screwed up slightly in a way that only a mothers could. Only when they were holding something in.

With shaking hands and skittering breathes she leant herself against the barricade, standing next to Derek's curled up form. No one would speak of that moment for years afterwards, but noticing how the older woman's hands were shaking Derek reached up and took one of hers in his, tentatively and without a word. No one would speak of how she smiled then, slow and sweet, as a sob sprang with a laugh through her throat.

“I don't know … I don't know what I'm going to do...” 

Everyone knew what she meant. They felt the same.

The minutes stretched on with the small ragtag group sitting suspended in the moment. Stiles was in trouble, Stiles who had sacrificed so much for all of them, and they were basically powerless to help him. Stiles who never failed to be there for all of them over the blood splattered years. It was confronting, and they could all feel their stomachs turn.

They turned more when Deaton stepped out of the back room … and he looked as unwell as they felt.

He levelled them with an unfamiliar exhausted gaze, his hands clasping and unclasping at his sides. He looked like a man defeated.

Scott was on his feet in a flash, stepping towards his boss as he stumbled over how to ask what the hell was going on. Deaton held up one of his hands to stop the younger man's verbal stumbling \, eyes harder than any had ever seen them.

“I see no way to soften this, we have no time to mix words,” he spoke, his soft spoken tone splitting through the silence they had created, “Mr Stilinski is under the influence of a Nightmare.”

“What?” Scott squawked.

It was Lydia that answered though.

“Nightmare or simply Mare, from the Swedish Mardröm meaning Mara Dream. It is a creature, said to be a Witch or a spirit, that sits upon the chest of its victim to feed of their 'spirit' whilst feeding them horrendous dreams. They render their victims paralysed while they are 'feeding' and are said to ride wild horses at night.”

Deaton frowned at her.

“What?,” She sneered, rolling her eyes, “I've been translating the Bestiary for months. Duh.”

Isaac snorted and Allison patted her friends shoulder affectionately. Some things would never change no matter how much time passed.

Deaton seemed impressed, “You are almost completely right Ms Martin. A Mare is a curse that affects a person when they use magic. Like when after you get over an infection or injury, you come down with a cold. Magic, or what you people define as such, literally damages and drains the user to a dramatic extent- thus giving the Mare a chance to get into the users system and take route...and feed.”

“Thi- this curse has been feeding off of Stiles?!” Melissa all but screamed. The vet sighed.

“The curse has been using Stiles 'spark' as its own personal feast. I had been draining him of his energy over an extended period of time, while bombarding him with Nightmares and Terrors, and also manipulating their thought process. The aim is to create the host into a perfect feeding ground, isolated and alone without the chance of rescue from the curse...until there is nothing left for it to feed off of.”

All of them, every soul in the room, couldn't breath with the weight of what they had been told. Stiles had been dying slowly and no one had stopped it. Melissa put a hand over her mouth, holding back her gag reflex.

“But...” Isaac whispered, afraid to make a noise, “What happened now to make Stiles- … freak out? What changed?”

“The curse has reached its inevitable climax. It has places Stiles into a coma so it has no more interference with its … feast. Stiles would have gone through the agonising pain of the curse shutting down his functions one by one. I am surprised that his heart did not give out from the stress of it.” 

Isaac, the highly tuned wolf, was the first to crack. Curling in on himself and letting out a gut wrenching sob. Murder and fury Isaac reduced to tears at the thought of losing another one of the 'friends' he had only so recently attained. Lydia pulled the Were closer to her, hiding her face in his curls, while Scott and Allison stood motionless as the information refused to sink in. Derek, hiding his shaking hands by clasping Melissa's, rose to his feat and spoke what no one could at that moment.

“Can he be cured?”

Scott whimpered. His face crumpled and torn open for all to see. Stiles was half of him, always and forever the one thing that had never left. The thought of losing him, his brother, was tearing his insides apart.

“I … I have managed to delay it somewhat. I have isolated the curse slightly so as to give him relief from the nightmares. I can try cures; salves and medicines but … I have no idea if he will wake up... his mind was been made mailable and soft. By all human means he should be dead.”

If it had been silent and gut turn before it was Hell now. None of them could bare to look at each other while knowing that they could not see through the sting and tears in their eyes. They could feel claws at the backs of their throats, their limbs shivering as cold ran through their veins. They couldn't feel and yet they felt everything all at once.

They were powerless.

“...Is their anyone who we should call?” Allison whispered. 

“Oh god!” Melissa exclaimed, hands gripping claws into Derek's flesh, “John! He's in Seattle for a conference! He-... he will never make it pack in time...”

The vet sighed.

“I will try everything I know, but I can't say the outcome will be the one you are all wishing for. I will attempt to prolong his life for as long as I can … to give you all a chance to say goodbye.

 

Penny in the air. Flipping and turning, not landing or stopping until chance decide it. A point in flux, waiting for an action hung around the group at that moment. Flipping and flipping as no one moved for fear of breaking open. Waiting.

Waiting.

Noise faded out as the blood filled her ears.

Waiting.

Her vision leaving her as everything focused on the door guarding the dying boy. No one else in the room existed then.

Waiting.

Her mind was too fast. Too much was being screamed in the loudest whispers.

Waiting.

“Fuck. That.”

Penny lands.

 

Melissa moved without feeling it, propelling herself to the back-room door without knowing how she had gotten her feet to move. She couldn't feel the hands grabbing to pull her back, only the dark twisting figures that he imagination had taken as daunting omens. She couldn't hear them yelling over the blood thrumming in her head, but she knew from the warmth on her neck they were right behind her.

She burst through the door with too much force, hearing again for the first time in what felt like years. Her breathing harsh and her face set harsher she took in all that her boy had become.

Cold. So so cold.

The room smelled of a mixture of steriliser and the strange floral scent emanating from the bowl in the corner that was producing a blue flame. Sterile and cold. Chromed utensils and table tops on the usual impersonal linoleum, like the hospital but laced with a sinister feeling that Melissa couldn't explain. If she had of been paying attention to anything but the boy laying prone on the examination table, Melissa would have noticed that not a single animal was making noise, as though they were just as suspended in the moment as the group. She would have noticed the group being stopped at the threshold of the room and the small smirk on the all knowing Vet's face. She would have felt the air shift around her, pushing as though to keep her away. She would have heard the whispering.

But Melissa didn't give a rats-arse about anything else than the body of the boy in front of her. His expression was too still for her to believe he was sleeping, she had seen the boy sleep many times and he was never still. Not like this.

He looked like Stiles, lanky and wrapped in the bright red hoodie she had helped the Sheriff purchase after Stiles leant how to drive. A safety colour to keep him safe. His shoes were muddy and worn, the cuffs of his raggedy jeans almost tarred black with the stuff. 

He was Stiles. The boy her son had bought home after the first day of third grade. The boy who had never left either of them once through all the hell her husband had bought on. The hyperactive little thing that always knew too much and kept people from knowing about him and his weaknesses always. The boy she had held as he cried after accidentally calling her 'Mom'. 

But he also wasn't Stiles. Not completely.

The skin of his face was pulled tight and rapidly discolouring in shades of yellow and purple, his lips clenched and blue. His dirt covered hands where in claws where they lay across his stomach, and his breathing was barely there. 

He looked …

Melissa shook away the images of a hospital bed, too sweet smile, dying roses and her best-friend fighting against her unseen monster. Oh, Nastusia. 

With her teeth biting into her lip Melissa took a step forwards. And another. And another. Until she stood at the side of her funny little boy. He looked so small and she strained to hold back the bile rising in her throat. 

Bile, and rage and so much red. Bubbling red.

“Stiles,” She rasped, voice stripped and too loud and quiet at the same time, “Stiles Stilinski you stop this right now. You hear me? Right now, Mister!”

Scott whimpered again, but it was lost on her. Her vision had narrowed to right in front of her, tinged in scarlet.

“You … you have no right to leave us now. You have no right to up and leave us when we are so lost in … this! In all of this-this thing that we are ALL tiptoeing towards. This thing that you helped start. You hear that? No right!”

Her hands were gripping the side of the table with such force the others at the threshold could swear they saw the metal bend and warp under her touch. He mouth was set and she was so... much. Oh so much in that moment.

“I have worked to damn hard to keep you all going- to keep you all safe and warm and going. You have worked so hard, Stiles. You are the reason, the moral ideas behind us all. You … You cant just leave...

...I know that this all had effected your life, what it has done to John and your relationship. I-I know  
you feel like you are drowning in all of this- that it is up to you to save everyone- to be the last defence. That you are a soldier.

But you are not a soldier Stiles. You are a boy, a lost and confused boy who wants to keep everyone close because you cant bear the thought of losing someone again … and keeping everyone at arms length because you cant have your heart broken again..”

Her voice broke as she leant over the boy, tears springing forth without consent.

“ … I know... you. I know you. You are the little boy who stomped though my door all those years ago and watched Power Rangers with my son. You are the little boy who wouldn't let anyone into your mothers hospital room without checking their identification. You are the little boy who taught my little boy how to ride a bike and let him stay at your house when all I could do was cry ... you used to hold my hand when you found me crying, do you remember that Stiles? You would hold my hand and just sit with me until I stopped.

You never left us, not once. You saved Scott- you really did. He had no one before you- he didn't even speak, for Christ sake!.. but he didn't have to with you did he? You made up for that … you made him want to speak, and smile and laugh after everything that had been taken from him. After everything that had been taken from you. You held us together- both of us.

And when my son got 'bitten' you held him together again, despite everything that it has done to your life and your fathers life you stayed with him no matter what. You saved his life, Stiles. You saved him from something that was inside him- something that could have easily killed you... but you didn't care.

And now look what has happened? Huh? You have a Pack, Stiles! You bought together- the opposing forces of this town- you mowed down the social politics of your high school and the supernatural world to bring us all together. Yes, we all had are parts to play and actions to take- but you gave us that push and were always their to catch us. 

You- Stiles Stilinski- have become our heart. You have tied us together … you cant just leave that now!”

Melissa slapped the table, the loud noise reverberating through the entire building. Everyone looked on stricken, awed and motionless. They had no clue what was happening- what she was doing- but no one moved to stop her. They stood one on the dark threshold, connected through touch and bond as the woman in front of them strove to save their fallen pack mate. It was surreal and heart wrenching at the same time.

But nothing was changing. He was still barely breathing and sickly. Nothing was happening. 

Melissa's sob tore through them all as she set her shoulders and spoke through the burning in her eyes and throat.

“You … You can't leave me. Not now. Not after all this. I need you Stiles, we all need you … whose gonna hold my hand if your gone?

Nope- nope, your not leaving. Not now- not ever, you understand me? Screw the pack- screw everyone- you cant leave me! Because I may not be your mother, Stiles, but god dammit, you're my son!”

Silence. Stillness. 

The fight seemed to leave her then, her body curling in on it's self to keep it's self from breaking apart. She lay her head on the still boys chest and finally let the sobs leave her body with the boys true name going with them. The words had been torn out of her, painfully and sharply. She felt broken. The others were feeling much the same as they watched the strong woman collapse. Broken and powerless. But when Scott moved to go to his mother he found himself held back by Deaton's steady hands. 

“Patience,” He whispered.

Melissa was lost, her mind going a million miles an hour in complete quiet as she buried her face in that stupid red hoodie. Her hands were gripping the boys sides as though to hold him together herself. She couldn't see, she couldn't think, she couldn't breath without gasping for air, she couldn't feel- 

Wait. Slowing her hyperventilated breathes she focus. Something soft and gentle was running through her hair. Warm and soothing and oh so like the touch of a woman she had lost years before.

“Stiles..!”

Raising her head Melissa gazed at the boy below her, bleary eyes finally open and fever bright, fixed on her as his shaking right hand tangled in her hair. His mouth moved into a kind of smile, still blue and too tight, but a smile all the same. His voice came after a moment, croaking and crackling from hours of disuse and the strain of fighting of the curse. 

“Do ...Don't c-cry Mells. Ever- things gonna be al... right. Alright.”

Not holding back Melissa flung herself at the boy, laughing and sobbing into his neck. She had never heard a better sound. Stiles flailed in a pale imitation of how he always did, eventually grasping hold of the ecstatic woman and hugging back as best he could. The rest of them, as though released from their own kind of sleep, cam spilling over the threshold to throw themselves at their friend, their pack mate. 

Scott was teary and hugging Stiles as much as he could, most of which the still touch timid Isaac was pulled into. Derek ran his hand over Stiles hair and showed his crooked teeth as he smiled down at the younger man. The three wolves places their hands somewhere on Stiles skin, black vines appearing under their skin as they took away Stiles pain and made him giggle in the process. Lydia was chastising and ranting the moment she had him in her arms and Allison was quick to tell him how much they all loved him. It was overwhelming in a completely welcome way. Later the others would wake and come in. Later Melissa would prod and poke Stiles until they all agreed to finally tell his father exactly what was going on in his town. Later they would learn how Melissa had saved Stiles life through her tears and calling his true name. Later they would finally get to sleep, knowing Chris Argent had gotten rid of the Omega's and that they were all safe again. Later they would learn how Melissa had saved Stiles life through her tears and 

But that was later. For now they surrounded themselves with the absolute joy and relief of getting Stiles back, happy and speaking in sentences that didn't truly need finishing. Smiles and hugs and tears that came without heartbreak. For once they had won against the dark and lost no one. 

And Deaton, ever knowing ever wise, stood apart. He gazed out to the waiting room, eyes fixed on the swaying trees through the glass doors. He grinned.

“What was it you used to say, Nastusia?” he breathed as the light of the rising such danced across the leaves, “'Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage'”

The wind blew outside, rustling the leaves and Deaton chuckled. Some things would never truly leave this town. No matter what came, no matter the battle or the darkness nothing could ever truly drive the love out of the trees and the wind and those who would guard them. Not ever.

 

The End

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sick and I am so sorry if I missed any mistakes.
> 
> the quote at the end is by Lao Tzu
> 
> title from Firewood by Regina Spektor which everyone should listen to.
> 
> Thank you!


End file.
